


Dear John

by Meretseger68



Series: Always John [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dermagraphism, Drugged John, Dubious Consent, How the first time wasn't the first time, Insecure Sherlock, Jealous John, M/M, S03 tidied up, but he asked for it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-20 22:07:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2444867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meretseger68/pseuds/Meretseger68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock have their first argument. John finds out that their first time wasn't their first time. Billy the Skull is the only witness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear John

_Watson – what have you done now? I hope you are reading this because you’ve finally come to your senses and the great daft git has given you this to let you know what he had to do to stop your wailing. Do I? I don’t know. Maybe you should never read it. Right now I am/you are being a coward._

_Whatever you think, whatever reason you’ve been given this - don’t be angry with him. You were the one that wanted him to do it. You are drunk and you’re angry with yourself because you took advantage of him and you’re too chicken, I’m too chicken, to face up to it. You won’t remember because I asked him to give me something to delete what I’ve done to him. It might be better if you never know any of it._

_He asked me to write this, just in case it doesn’t work, in case you suddenly remember what I did but you forget that you wanted to forget. What am I saying? I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m just scared I’ve gone too far and I’ve messed everything up with my best friend._

_John._

_Watson you dick. Stop blaming the drink, you wanted to do it. And it’s not because you’ve been too long without. That’s just because you’ve been looking for him out there and he’s always been here instead. He’ll do anything for you. Helping delete what I’ve done is just what I want him to do to keep you happy. He looks so sad and I keep saying I’m sorry and I didn’t mean to and he’s given me the drink and it tastes vile and I deserve it._

_He says I’ll have a hangover like death tomorrow. How does he know? How many other people has he helped to forget things? I’m going to inflict that on you because I’m too scared to be honest about my feelings, your feelings. He says he understands and he won’t mention it. This is just in case I remember and think he’s been messing with my head – I asked him to do it._

_If you’re reading this John I hope you got yourself sorted out and stopped running away and this is just a sad souvenir of not being honest with yourself._

_If something has gone wrong and this turns up when police are going through his stuff then whoever is reading it has my permission to go and call me a dick._

_John W_

_John Hamish Watson you cock. You’re on the verge of something fantastic and you’re running away from it, from him. This stuff he’s given me is bloody awful but I asked for it so you’ll just have to deal with whatever happens next. He’s promised me you’ll have the mother of all hangovers but I guess I deserve it (what - you going to sue me?)._

_The saddest thing is that he seems so understanding._

_Oh shit. How many of these letters have I written to myself?_

_Have I done this before? Going out and looking and not seeing what I need to fill all the empty spaces I have. Then home and drunk and he’s just here. He’s always here for me. You won’t know but it was like he just knew what I needed. How can I tell him I lov_

_Fuck it John, too late to take it back. You deserve the hangover._

The three envelopes had been addressed to himself in a blurry version of John’s own doctor scrawl. Each was dated to match three nights out with Mike. There had been nothing from their last sortie, nothing from the night when _it_ had happened. The handwritten notes, like the envelopes, lay discarded on the floor by John’s empty chair.

221b was silent in the aftermath of their first argument. Sherlock had retreated to his room in a huff (Mycroft would have said high dudgeon – especially as door slamming had been involved), John had grabbed his coat and disappeared into the early October gloaming, knuckles white on clenched fists and back ramrod straight.

Billy the Skull stared blankly into the room as evening became night. Of all the things Billy had seen and heard he would probably have been most surprised to hear something that might have been quiet sobbing start in the bedroom next to the bathroom. But Billy didn’t have ears so he couldn’t have heard it. If there was no one to hear it then it didn’t happen. Eventually the sound that wasn’t heard came to a stop – whether it was because Sherlock had sorted himself out, or cried himself out, or just deleted the whole thing was not even a rhetorical question because, clearly, no one had been crying.

221b was dark when John returned. He’d been nowhere, just round and round in his head as he’d moved from coffee shop to pub. The bonhomie had seemed forced. He’d retreated to a bench in the park around the corner taking his tumble of thoughts and half written text messages with him. The cold had made his bad shoulder ache.

John thought they had been doing quite well, for them. No repeat of that beautiful glimpse of flesh, no increase in their glacial pace together but nearly three weeks in and no broken crockery. Oh Sherlock had pulled a face when John had said he would have to go back to work, but they both knew that some form of steady income was required; it had seemed to be more for form than any real objection. Obviously, since the trouble with … since the trouble John couldn’t go back to the old practice, maybe just some locum work to begin with.

When it started it had seemed inconsequential … then suddenly privacy seemed very important to the doctor and he’d hesitated when updating his details on-line. He couldn’t tick the ‘divorced’ box because he wasn’t sure that had even been a marriage. He couldn’t click ‘widowed’ because, well, he wasn’t entirely certain what had happened to Mary anyway (and would it lead to paperwork, more questions?). Sherlock had seen his frown as he looked at the drop down box on the web page, then at the detective … and then selected ‘single’.

“I thought they would have had an option for ‘cohabiting’ or ‘partnered’ or whatever the PC term is …” The low pitched drawl hadn’t been a question. There was no way that Sherlock could see through the back of his laptop screen (sometimes John had wondered so he’d checked one day, and then checked for reflective surfaces behind him). John’s own face must have given him away.

“I wasn’t sure what to put. I don’t think _we_ are any of anyone else’s business.” Billy the Skull had watched intently from the mantelpiece as the doctor seemed to answer with an uncertain waver.

“Are you ashamed of being with me John?” This time it was a question. Though it had said calmly enough there was something in the question that seemed to be holding back a torrent of unsaid fear.

And so the argument had begun. Sherlock already sounding beaten and John not understanding why; John asking how he could even think that ... and Sherlock, finally, blazing at him in almost incoherent insecurity that it was too late to delete his mistake this time as people already knew and he couldn’t very well drug Mrs Hudson or Lestrade just to make John happy (the thought of drugging Mycroft was clearly not something that Sherlock ever felt uncomfortable about). John had stared at Billy the Skull as if expecting an answer from the empty sockets when the younger man had whirled from the room - only to return to thrust the envelopes accusingly into his confused lover’s face.

The notes were in John’s writing, but he had no idea what they meant. All he’d remembered those nights out for had been the ferocity of the grey-skinned sweats and gut wrenching aftermath the following day (dear God the whole weekend, even Harry had suggested it might be better for him to cut back a bit). But the last time he’d woken up with Sherlock and he’d felt something begin to replace the ache, to fill the empty spaces and he desperately wanted that to continue.

“Sherlock.” John knocked again, slightly louder. “Sherlock. Can I come in?” John realised he didn’t know where the letters had been hidden. Had Sherlock found a new place to hide things? The lover didn’t want to think he would go back to that; the doctor feared that he might have broken something important in the crazy spider web of Sherlock’s ego and anything could have happened. “Sherlock. Please. At least just tell me to fuck off so I know you’re ok.”

A pause. The bedroom door flung open to reveal the young man dressed as he’d appeared earlier – t-shirt, plaid lounge pants and dressing gown, hair a messy silhouette with the soft light behind him – “fuck off.” The growl had no bite to it and his breath seemed to catch on the two simple syllables. A well placed shoe stopped the door closing again and John pushed his way into the room. “I said fuck off. I said it. You wanted me to say it so I said it and … why … why don’t you just go if you don’t want to be with me.”

The tousled hair didn’t lift as Sherlock spoke to John’s shoes. Everything about the way he stood seemed wrong. This wasn’t the genius detective sure of himself and getting the better of others. This was, and John cursed himself when he suddenly remembered what it had been like, this was a gangly and awkward teenager suffering his first … oh, thank God he didn’t know about making mix tapes.

“Sherlock.” John put his arms around the boy and tried to hold him close. They felt like all the wrong angles. What was he? Five, six inches shorter? The daft git was too tall to be comforted by a hug that he was fighting. He tried again. “Sherlock … just because I’ve had more experience it doesn’t mean I have any more clue when it comes to us. What you are is different. There’s nothing that fits what we are together. And we are together … aren’t we?” There was no reply but the haphazard arrangement of limbs became more comfortable.

With a gentle hand, John pulled the dark head down on to his shoulder. Sherlock? Wasn’t that meant to mean fair haired? Odd family, odd boy but so … well, within his boundaries … so loving. He turned his head and trapped one elegant ear against his mouth. “I swear I don’t know what I did to you. Whatever it was, you did what I asked you to and got rid of it and that can’t have been easy to do. You know and I don’t and …” his mouth was dry and all kinds of things were hurting, he licked his lips and tried again, “God Sherlock, I don’t know what I’ve done and I have no idea how I’ve been so lucky to have you in my life. Please tell me I didn’t hurt you or force you … or … or do anything that makes you think I don’t love you.”

“You love me?” It took a little while for John to interpret the question muttered into the layers of material bunched up at his shoulder.

“I love you William Sherlock Scott Holmes. I love you.”

“But you put single.” There was a pause, maybe a muffled sniff. “You put single on the form. I saw you do it.” What the hell, it was a waxed jacket it could cope with some detective snot.

“It’s just a box on a form. No one reads it. They didn’t have ‘head over heels in love with a consulting detective’ as an option.”

“My … Mycroft will see it.” There was a definite sniff that time. He was slim to the point of ridiculous but there was still a lot of detective now slumped heavily on John’s shoulder. The bad shoulder.

“And if he says anything then I’ll teach him some interesting tricks with that umbrella of his. I don’t care what Mycroft thinks and I don’t care what some stranger thinks of me. But I do care what they think of you.” Negotiating the transition from standing to sitting on the bed was an awkward one but Sherlock let himself be manoeuvred with no resistance. Shucking the jacket in the warm room was a little trickier but it was achieved with the minimum loss of contact between them. A bit of footwork and John’s shoes were eased off.

They ended up with John leant up against the headboard, Sherlock curled up across him with fists caught up in John’s jumper. The doctor ran his fingers through the dark curls on his chest. So soft. He liked how they felt on his bare skin, how they looked on the pillow next to him when he woke. Dear God, how a stray curl felt against his thigh as Sherlock … How the hell could he have wanted to forget anything that involved those curls?

“I don’t want anyone outside asking questions, maybe saying something that will make you feel uncomfortable … with everything being so new. And later we don’t need to say anything anyway. Genuinely Sherlock, this is no one else’s business but our own.”

“It’s not because you’re embarrassed about ending up with me?” John didn’t know how he did it but the tight little ball of anxiety that was his boyfriend made himself even smaller, his normally commanding voice uncertain and quiet in the uncharted territory of feelings.

“The only thing I’ve got to be embarrassed about is how much of a selfish shit I’ve been. Asking you to delete it, whatever it was, was no reflection on you but on how much of a coward I’ve been. And you did it. And you never said a word. Oh Sherlock … months, you waited months for me to …”

“… to not be ashamed after you’d finished. I always thought you’d get there, you just needed a bit of time to adjust to it. Don’t worry John, we didn’t do anything I wasn’t happy with … and you were a good teacher.” The dark head lifted, one cheek all white and pink raised blotches to match the pattern of a now slightly damp jumper. John stared and made a note to himself to get one of those soft over-washed shirts if they were going to have a replay of the same scene in the future. Long fingers stopped him reaching out to touch the irritated skin. “Sorry, it looks worse than it is, stressing doesn’t help. Great for putting Janine off, not so good when I’m with you. Ignore it, it will settle down.”

“God, Janine.” Despite the awkwardness of the evening John couldn’t help a laugh. “You know, I was so jealous of her. I had a wife and a home and a child on the way … and I was sooo jealous of Janine. That morning, before Magnussen came here, and she was with you in the bath. She was with you. And I thought I had no chance because I didn’t have what she had …”

One eye had begun to go puffy, the spreading aggravation on his skin distorted part of that luscious bottom lip. How could John ignore it? Still, it didn’t seem to bother Sherlock as he laughed and uncurled himself to lie alongside the shorter man. “Oh Janine. She got the transport having some very adverse reactions. A nice enough girl but she got Sherlock because of a case. Maintaining the pretence was all quite … enervating. Like everyone else Janine had no chance because she wasn’t you.”

“Really?”

“Always you John. Only ever you.” The younger man dared a kiss, then another with maybe the merest hint of parted lips and the ghost of his tongue between them. “Now, can you please get out of that jumper before I lean on it again. Better still … how about you get out of those clothes altogether?”

**Author's Note:**

> Finally, finally, I get around to the secret that Sherlock has been keeping from John. I seem to be completely incapable of getting to porn.  
> I had the idea that Sherlock had erased their first times together to save John from beating himself up at the same time I thought of 'the day after' ... apologies for how long it took me to get there.  
> I like the idea of Sherlock the chemist - more to come when we find out where his potions come from (not quite cold-pressed from angel tears).  
> These things take an age to write, I'm very jealous of all of you who say 'oh I had half an hour spare' and then I sit in awe.  
> Please comment / leave kudos as I'm such a tart.


End file.
